While the Spanish have a reputation for not lolling about in bed, you won't find them sitting much either. Standing is a national sport in Spain--at least in Madrid which is also known as the tapas capital of the world.

In Madrid, the citizens are debout partout or standing everywhere, hip-hugging the bar, elbows at the comptoir.* They crowd around tall outdoor tables along the cozy couloirs* or "travesías,"* and sometimes stand in transit; but mostly the Madrilènes* stand up for their cuisine, literally so.

If standing is the order of the day, on the menu you'll find tapas, those little bite-size appetizers that locals are fond of eating. In Spain dinner is eaten late, ten, eleven p.m. late, so tapas are the solution. You can eat your way across the city, going from tapas bar to tapas bar where the little savory snacks are from a few, to several, euros a pop and arrive to your late-night restaurant reservation with your blood sugar intact.

"Madrid is cozier than Barcelona," I tell Jean-Marc, in the immense Plaza Mayor. We were seated (I admit) beyond the portico, in front of yet another packed eatery. Beneath our table a small fan club had gathered at Jean-Marc's feet; the half-dozen chubby sparrows were all legs, I might add, evidence that Spanish birds don't sit either."Je ne sais pas," I don't know, my husband reflected, feeding his feathered admirers, before reasoning: "You mean that Barcelona is like Paris and Madrid is like Marseilles.""Exactly!" I agreed, satisfied with the comparison.

Three tapas bars into our visit and we had sampled an array of specialties including "bocadillo de calamares" or fried squid, jamón ibérico,* cod croquettes, marinated anchovies or "boquerones," the creamy and piquant* manchego cheese, spicy hot champiñones,* and onions baked so slowly they melt down sweetly on the tongue.

The word tapas comes from the Spanish verb "tapar" (to cover) and some say tapas came about by utility: to keep flies from falling into the fruity wine. Once upon a time a small plate was placed over the drink "for cover" and, as the empty assiette* looked a little sad, an olive was added to brighten things up.

Others cite history. The story goes that someone, while serving King Alfonso XII, took care to cover the king's cup of sherry with a slice of ham so as to keep the dust out. When the king, his appetite now whetted, ordered another sherry, he added, coyly, "with the same cover".

I sort of like the barbaric quality of the second explanation--with the grub directly over the glass--eliminating the need for a middleman plate, and so I'll do as those upright Madrilènes would do, hips to the counter, elbows above. I'll stand by that theory.

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

It didn't take a Spanish weekend to figure out the significance of 48.* By the time Jean-Marc pushed open the door to the madriliène* "suite" he had reserved, I quickly understood the riddle: forty-eight rhymes with cheap date. So there you go, and there I went, and haltingly so, into the room, jaws dropped and eyes wide open, my arm bent and hand wagging as I let my husband know that this one took the cake.

For forty-eight euros the room had everything but bed bugs. The double bed (so short that Jean-Marc's pieds* hung two feet over the edge) had one long pillow-for-two. Blue satiny curtains concealed rotting shutters and the room's light fixtures were obscene: dainty gray-smoked flutes giving birth to giant misfit bulbs. The slippery tub was slightly longer than the cracked sink andmissing a chain for emptying the intemperate water; the imprinted towels were stolen and, as for the toilet--which was shoved against the wall lengthwise--the only way to sit was sidesaddle.

No matter, we would only use the room for sleeping. But sleep, I would soon learn, is one thing Madrileños* don't do. This I discovered at two, three, four, five and even six in the morning when the street below ebbed and flowed with the most startling sounds. Lying there in bed, I pictured people pouring out of the bars and onto the street below our window. Amid the non-stop Spanishmurmur, I heard laughing, shouting, clacking, and even mass clinking when, at dawn, I imagined the street cleaners were pushing the noisy fêtards* along and out with the empty bottles. I could finally unwrap my head (having found a purpose for that unusually long pillow*) and breathe easy. Only now the thud of so many steel curtains crashing against the stone sidewalk took over. As the bars closed, the streets reopened to the venerable Madrileños who were up and whistling through the streets, walking the dogs with a clack, clack, clack of the heel. And, thanks to the church-bound motorists, we now had a new beat: bark-bark-clack-clack-HOOONK!-bark-bark-clack-clack-HOOONK!

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

On ne sait jamais ce que demain sera. We never know what tomorrow will be.

I never imagined in my wildest dreams that I would one day share the French word for "soothsayer" with you. But then, I never divined I'd one day speak French either. The truth, or sooth, if you like, is that much of what I think will happen in the future just never does. Sweat, fret, and toil as I may, things are never as grim (or glitzy) as I make them up to be.

So when I told you last month that, come Valentine's Day, I would be hacking my way through fields of grapevines, I might have first paused to cast an eye through the window of experience. Instead of a tangled jungle of vines, I might have seen a fuzzy ray, a glimmer, of what could be. Forget poetry--yonder, and through that foggy window, I might've perceived the number 48!

"How about Madrid?" Jean-Marc offered, tossing a guidebook my way and suggesting I read up on our neighbor west of the Pyrenees. "But I thought you needed help pruning this weekend?" I inquired, to which my husband informed me that, thanks to the help of Jérôme, another vigneron* in a nearby village, all 21 acres of vines have almost been pruned.

When Jean-Marc informed me that a roundtrip ticket from Marseilles to Madrid was running 48 euros and a hotel room in the city center was the same amount, 48 euros, it didn't take 48 seconds to agree to the impromptu trip. Coincidentally, we'll spend exactly 48 hours in Spain and, come to think of it, 48* also represents my home state of Arizona. As my mind conjures up images of a nickel-plated "'48" on the door of our Spanish hotel room, I am reminded that I can't tell the future; devineresse* I am not. And while I could look for coincidences galore and even think up 48 ways to have fun in Spain this weekend, the sooth is, I don't have time for guessing games--I've got a plane to catch!

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

A homonym of ouïe (and its plural) is the multi-meaninged "ouïes". Use it when you want to talk about fish gills and other popular topics of conversation--such as those "sound holes" on a violin and the "ears" or "ventilation slots" behind your computer, in the home, on the car, etc....

* * *Si tout le corps était oeil, où serait l'ouïe? s'il était tout ouïe, ou serait l'odorat? If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? --Saint Paul.

Beneath a deep gray sky I saw a white-haired woman in a raincoat blue as the heavens in summertime. The woman and I were heading in the same direction, one of us on foot, the other on foot pedal. I slowed my car to a stop and rolled down the passenger seat window.

"Can I give you a lift?" I offered."Bonjour, Madame," my neighbor began, remembering politesse.* "Yes," she said, "I am going to the coiffeur."* I noticed her hair, which looked pretty to me. For a moment I thought about how a certain hair phenomenon is not lost on Europeans, that is: salon bound women are never having a better hair day as when they are due to have their locks cut off. I wondered if Madame was beginning to regret her decision?

"Alors, on déménage?" So, we're moving? Madame asked, more as an affirmation than a question. I waited for my passenger to fasten her seatbelt before I replied."Yes...end of JUNE," I clarified."C'est bien," she said after one too many beats of silence."You are moving far from here?""Near ORANGE. Two-and-a-half hours NORTH...""Pour le travail?"*"Yes, for WORK--my husband's WORK."

I caught myself speaking loudly and repeating my words. Why is it that when I hear a foreign tongue struggling with a second language I act as if the speaker's ears are weak? My Italian neighbor isn't hard of hearing she just speaks French with a very thick accent. And so do I--only my neighbor doesn't shout at me. But then, we've already learned that she has better manners.

As for being hard of hearing and speaking French like fondue--or, with an accent as thick as cheese--an orthophoniste* friend of mine, Isild, would argue that the two are related: that people like me and my neighbor, with accents thick as emmental, are not hearing French words exactly as they are spoken. We need to listen more carefully. Rather, *I* should listen more carefully. As for my neighbor, she hears just fine and, as we've mentioned, has pretty hair to boot.

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

Farfouiller is derived from the word "fouiller" (to search, dig); the prefix "far" gives the idea of motion : farfouiller (to rummage about). To form the noun, just add the suffix "ette" to the verb for "farfouillette": a place to dig about in or "a rummage shop".

* * *

Tous les matins à l'aube, les chiffonnières de Paris farfouillent dans toutes les poubelles pour y trouver les objets vendables. (Each morning at dawn, the rag ladies of Paris rummage through all of the garbage cans in order to find saleable objects.) --from the book French: How to Speak and Write It

Hanging up the phone I feel a pang of guilt for not directing the caller to the brocante* he was looking for. After all, I know where La Farfouillette is--just a few kilometers from here on the outskirts of Vidauban. I've been to the junk shop a few times, as witnessed by the quirky bricoles* around my house, and there's an old wooden shutter, painted red, with a heart motif that I've decided to use as a gate for a future potager*--one my mom is already helping to dream up. Speaking of ma mère,* she's been to the not-so-far away Farfouillette too, having walked out a little more upright, thanks to the black lacquered cane she unearthed there, this, while waiting for her hip to heal fully. I remember, too, a wonderful swayback garden bench painted forest green...it must've sold by now. Then again, maybe it is still for sale?

Well, there you go, one good reason for not sticking around to chat with the caller whom I mentioned in the opening dialogue. After all, it is not my job to give out phone numbers, and besides, as the French might argue (while tapping index finger to forehead, crazed look in the eye): "Does it read 'OPERATOR' here?"

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

French proverb: Le jeu n'en vaut pas la chandelle. The game is not worth the candle.

All good things must come to an end and in Provence santons* are no exception. On February 2nd, at Candelmas* (what the French call "Chandeleur") the meticulously arranged crèche is finally taken down and the colorful santon figurines are carefully put away. That's when the party begins--for February 2nd is also known as Crêpe Day!

Regretfully, our family didn't have any hand-painted santons to store, but boy did we put away the pancakes! When Jean-Marc couldn't find his mother's crêpes recipe, he rolled up his sleeves and made the batter "au pif"*--mixing together a bunch of flour, several eggs, a drenching of milk, a dash of salt, a swirl of warmed butter and a few tears of water.

Meanwhile, I prepared the fillings tray: the salty and sugary additions that would top off the delicate crêpes. The salé* selections included gruyère, ham, tarama,* smoked salmon and hummus. As for the dessert crêpes, we had sugar for sprinkling and other sweet spreadables including fig jam, caramel sauce, chestnut purée, Nutella and Aunt Marie-Françoise's lavender honey. Missing were the whipped cream and my mother-in-law who, if she were here (instead in Marseilles preparing sarrasin* crêpes for her neighbor) would've loved a drop or two of lemon juice and a powdering of cinnamon to go with the sugar on her crêpes.

Jean-Marc had pre-cooked the crêpes for reheating at the dinner table, this, thanks to the handy dandy "crêpes party" machine (a Teflon coated unit with six mini pancake shaped warmers). Because I didn't see my husband grilling the cakes, I can't be sure if he remembered to flip the cakes with the right hand while holding a coin in the left (an old French "recipe" for prosperity (and good crops!!!).

Some say the golden, round crêpes are reminiscent of the sun and, therefore, the coming of printemps.* While our pancakes reminded me of those things, the golden disks had me thinking of back home where the Arizona desert is lit by the large chandelle* in the sky. I remembered my nieces and nephews, little southwestern marmots who were probably just coming out of a long slumber in time to celebrate Groundhog's day; up in time to enjoy my sister's homemade waffles (a sort of square shouldered, dimply-cheeked big brother to the dainty crêpe and, in my experience, all the better for hogging).

Additional references:santon (from en.wikipedia.org): In Provence, in the South of France, nativity scenes are sometimes composed of hundreds of small painted clay figurines, called santons, representing all the traditional trades and professions of old Provence.

Candlemas (definition from Dictionary.com) : a church festival, February 2, in honor of the presentation of the infant Jesus in the Temple and the purification of the Virgin Mary: candles are blessed on this day.

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

Hâte-toi de bien vivre... Make haste to live and consider each day a life... Seneca

Envie

(ahn-vee)

noun, feminine

longing

.

I was staring at the empty branches of our dogwood tree,willing its wooden limbs to quiver and send forth so many rosy blossoms, when I recognized a vague longing coming from within.

I stood up and walked over to the north window,threw open the painted green shuttersand saw a small feathered creature pacing back and forth over a bed of crumbling leaves,just above the would-be strawberry patch.

I recognized another restless soul throwing its own will around,this one willing so many worms to pop out of the cold ground!

I looked at my dogwood,the red robin at its frozen patch,neither of us able to get the universe to dance for us.

On days like this the worms rejoice and the dogwoods, still as they are, cause willing hearts to stir.

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

BONJOUR. Je m'appelle Kristi. I write to you weekly from our home in France. Each post is created for maximum French learning. My stories and books are sprinkled with useful vocabulary and provide insights into real French life. Enjoy each quick, educational read--sign up here

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